. >> this compromise or set of compromises that gets us overthefiscalcliffwillset the stage for president obama to craft a compromise and demographics. the republicans know they have to compromise and get something done on immigration. tax reform, the republicans have said they want tax reform. president obama said the same. we need tax reform. immigration and tax reform post the fiscal cliff will create a legacy and may see congress doing something. >> that is why it is so important that they figure out a way to come together before the end of the year hopefully. if the environment is poisoned like it was after the stimulus, after the health care debate, the next four years will be ugh low. >> that's true. the higher number of women increases the chances. we will see. >> i saw the women here smiling. we were talking about how collaborative they were. the guys, not so much. >> we don't smile. i agree. the more women the better. i'm agreeing with you. can i say nothing? i said the more women, the better. i'm agreeing with you. the more women, the less self destructive egos and getting to a deal.

's not what the american people thoughtthefiscalcliffwasabout. they thought it was about trying to have something to force us, force our congress and our president to do something about the deficit and debt situation. everything they're talking about will make it worse. >> what's the answer? will we have the deal? >> the real answer is to have comprehensive. look at this. i as a republican, i would take raising the rates on the two top brackets if, in return, we had tax reform laid out over a period of months, if we had entitlement reform. we have to control defense spending. we have to control other no non- -- other discretionary non-defense spending. i think if you have the whole package, i would hold my nose despite the fact raising those two tax brackets is bad economics, bad for jobs, will hurt the economy, i would hold my nose to get the other done. what i wouldn't do is vote for that and do nothing else. >> agree completely. what i've been saying here. steve rattner. >> i agree completely. to get a big deal we all have to hold our nose a little bit and accept things we don't want

today. it's over. why inject the politics? why go there? with so much going on,thefiscalcliff, negotiatingback and forth with the house trying to figure out how to avoid massive tax increases and spending cuts, why there? it's all politics. >> steve: one other note, the "wall street journal" says regarding right to work states, between 2000 and 2010, 5 million people moved from union states to right to work states and they have 23% higher rate of income growth per capita in right to work states. so things are thriving in the right to work states. there are 24 of them. 26 still are union states. >> gretchen: eric brought up an interesting point about why isn't the president staying in washington, because now it turns out that the fiscal cliff is actually closer than we thought. it was not coakley january 1 anymore. we've about to go off it any day now because apparently it takes a certain amount of days to actually draft any kind of legislation that they might come to an agreement on and so if you backtrack then from the end of the year and when congress is going to be going h